


Write it Out

by Eldabe



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldabe/pseuds/Eldabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ianto started his diary in London." </p>
<p>How Ianto began keeping a diary and why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Write it Out

**Author's Note:**

> [Iceshade](www.iceshade.livejournal.com)
> 
> looked this over for me. All remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Originally posted on my [livejournal](http://eldarwannabe.livejournal.com/114700.html)

Ianto started the diary in London, and most of the time he's surprised that he still continues it at all. The early pages are densely filled with notes on his new discoveries at Torchwood, with badly disguised code words for things he felt uncomfortable committing to paper. At some point (probably around the same time he started noticing the engineering tech on the eighth floor) he stopped bothering with codes, just dotting down whatever new and interesting piece he happened to think about in between his detailed date plans and terrible pick-up lines. 

He no longer bothers to re-read his early entries much these days. 

It had started as a suggestion from his new mentor, who was working on easing a fresh-faced twenty-two year old researcher-in-training into the organized bowels of Torchwood Tower. 

"Jones, this job can get to you." Rupert Howarth explained during lunch.

"Mmmmm hmmmm," Ianto agreed, struggling to maintain his air of professionalism after having the thin veneer of his reality ripped away. 

"You need to hold on to reality, the everyday. Go to a pub, see a match, kiss a girl. The normal stuff, Jones."

Ianto had nodded. 

Two weeks later, trained and already able to visit fourteen floors without escort, Rupert handed him a spiral-bound notebook. 

"Thank you, sir." Ianto responded automatically, his hand closing on the cover a little hesitatingly. 

"Write it out, Jones." Rupert said, "Lord knows you're not planning on talking to anyone."

That night, Ianto sat for nearly an hour, staring at the thin lines and wide margins and never once set pen to paper. 

The next day he bought an expensive diary in a posh bookshop, the cover a comfortingly dark green, the pages thick, unlined vellum. It had a comforting clasp and it felt weighty and solid in his hands. He used the original notebook for inappropriate doodles and bad sketches of his kettle before he threw it out completely.

His handwriting was precise and even on every page, even when he abandoned grammar for shorthand and code for simple abbreviations. For nearly two years, he tried to snatch a few minutes every night for a page, a paragraph, even a sentence or two. Lisa teased him, but respected his privacy. She only took pictures of him writing from angles where the words were invisible, and she never read over his shoulder. But with Lisa, he wrote less, preferring to voice his truest thoughts to her while making dinner, or snuggled together watching old movies, or whispered into her shoulder by the light of the moon. 

After Canary Wharf fell, he wrote in messy, unfinished sentences and wandering thoughts, disguised by his even hand. During the move to Cardiff, he wrote endless lists of things to do, so many things that he couldn't hold them in his head where he used to carry thousands of unrecorded secrets and passwords and plans. 

Once everything was settled, mostly, he found himself writing about the team and some strange alien discoveries, shying away from his painful reality and losing himself in his old habit. 

After Lisa, for almost four weeks, he wrote nothing at all. 

Two nights before he had to make his final decision, he sat down and wrote for nearly three hours. He wrote until his wrist ached and his eyes burned and the pages were dotted and thin with tiny saline drops. 

He collapsed in bed, exhausted, before he could rip the pages out and burn them away to nothing. 

After he came back, he kept using it, at least a line or two every night. Interesting artifacts, thoughts on Gwen and Owen, Tosh. Jack too, but his thoughts skittered around Jack for a while, wary and curious and uncertain. 

He didn't write down everything, but he put down the important things. It was the one thing he didn't let himself worry about, the one place he made for himself where he didn't have to follow protocol or procedure.

The job got to him anyway, wrapping around and inside of him, defining him in some twisted sort of way. 

He doesn't stop writing.


End file.
